As dot.coms and web versions of conventional businesses continue to proliferate, building strong brand leadership is more critical for business success than ever before. In his new book, Brand Leadership, David Aaker, professor emeritus of marketing, has created a guide to building and maintaining brand leadership.

Brand Leadership explains how a strategy of brand management can become brand leadership. Among other branding strategies, Aaker and co-author Erich Joachimsthaler, explain the use of multiple brand identities for different markets and the elaboration of effective brand identities. They explore different structures for connecting brands to their sub-brands and tools for brand building other than advertising. They also address the complex issue of implementing branding strategies on a global scale.

With this book Aaker completes the trilogy on branding that began with Managing Brand Equity, which proved that brands create value and explained the concept of brand equity. The second book in the series, Building Strong Brands, used models and numerous case studies to demonstrate how to build brand strategies.

Professor Aaker retired in January of this year to join Prophet Brand Strategies, a company founded by Haas alumni Scott Galloway, MBA 92, and R. Ian Chaplin, MBA 92. Prophet's approach to branding is based on the "Aaker Brand Identity Model." Aaker will serve as vice chairman. Joachimsthaler is the CEO of the Brand Leadership Company and a visiting professor of business administration at the Darden School.

Brand Leadership is published by the Free Press and is available in bookstores this month.

Five finalist teams were announced on Friday, February 25, for the Haas Undergraduate Program E-Business Management Consulting Case Competition, sponsored by Andersen Consulting and the Schlinger Family Foundation. The competition takes place at the Haas School this week.

The e-business case that the teams are addressing involves an Indonesian supply chain management company called the Cardig Group that is based in Jakarta. Each team must devise a new market entry strategy for the company that integrates its service offerings. Representatives from the Cardig Group are flying to the US to attend the final competition. The finalists, all UC Berkeley students, will compete on March 2 at 6:00 p.m. in the Wells Fargo room. The competition is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception.

In other case competition news, this past weekend a team of undergraduates traveled to the USC Marshall School of Business International Case Competition to compete against representatives from undergraduate business program from schools around the globe. The team members were Ron Saxena, Cecilia Pang, Stan Miroshnik, and Steve Lurie.

Annie Lai, assistant director of the Undergraduate Program, explained that although the Haas team didn't place at the USC competition, the students learned a lot from the experience. The next undergraduate case competition in which Haas students are participating is at the University of Washington in April.

The UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition organizers announced today that participating venture capitalist judges have completed the very difficult task of selecting 65 teams, from the 182 submissions, to compete in the next round of the business plan competition. The executive summaries were submitted by teams consisting of students and alumni from various schools at the UC Berkeley campus.

Each team lined up for the next round of competition is building a unique business plan. One hopes to provide driving time forecasts for commuters and commercial drivers. Another will create custom home designs. A third plans to launch business-to-business commerce with China.

Teams will compete for the $70,000 in cash and prizes, including a $50,000 first-place award. Second place winners take home $10,000. The third place and People's Choice awards winners will receive $5,000 each. Access to top venture capitalists and business leaders through the competition may also result in additional financing; to date, seven of last year's teams have secured more than $35 million in funding.

Final winners will be announced following team presentations on April 29. In preparation, teams will create and refine their business plans through a series of workshops held at the Haas School of Business. Each team will also be assigned a mentor from the group of participating entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and business practitioners. Leading venture capital and technology firms supporting the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition include lead underwriter Sevin Rosen Funds as well as ComVentures, Hambrecht & Quist, Asia Pacific, Applied Communications and Synapta.

The Evening MBA Program announced the addition of a Haas Prerequisite Program to the EvMBA degree beginning with students admitted for the Fall 2001 program year.

Currently, prospective students are required to take five prerequisite courses prior to enrolling in the EvMBA program. These prerequisites may be taken at any college or university, any community college, or at UC Extension. The new prerequisite program will offer the three prerequisites courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, and financial accounting at the Haas School in the summer, prior to the EvMBA program starting in the fall. Preliminarily admitted students will be given the option of testing out of these prerequisites in the spring, but no prior undergraduate work will be accepted to meet these requirements.

The mathematics and statistics prerequisites may still be met through prior academic work, but it must have been completed in the last 5 years (previously it was allowed to be completed within the last 7 years).

"The new prerequisite program represents months of discussion with current students, faculty, the EvMBA committee, and the executive committee," said Diane Dimeff, director of the Evening MBA Program. "We're very excited about this change as we are confident that it will strengthen the fit between the prerequisites and their corresponding core courses."

The admissions cycle for the EvMBA Program in fall of 2001 has also been changed. Applications are now due October 1, 2000; decision letters will be sent out April 1, 2001. The prerequisite waiver exams will be given April 28 and 29, 2001 and the prerequisite program will starts on May 14, 2001.

The Haas School would like to thank the following companies and foundations whose new unrestricted gifts in fiscal year 1999-2000 qualify them for membership in the Haas School of Business Corporate Investors:

Advent Software, Inc.

Eastman Kodak Company

The News Corporation Foundation/Fox Entertainment Group, Inc.

Seiler & Company, LLP

Teligent, Inc.

The Corporate Investors program was created to provide special recognition to corporations and foundations that invest in the future of business management by providing the Haas School with unrestricted operating funds. These flexible funds impact every area of the school, including recruitment and retention of a top ranked faculty, expansion and innovation in the curriculum, enhancement of student services, and ongoing interaction and communication with our alumni.

"The Haas School is indebted to the corporations and foundations that have built a far-reaching public-private partnership in business education at Cal through their involvement in the Corporate Investors program," said Dean Laura D'Andrea Tyson. "We will continue to work hard to warrant their confidence and investment."

Vice President Al Gore visited the OpNet program in San Francisco on Saturday, February 26. OpNet was founded in 1997 by Dan Geiger, MBA 98, and E. David Ellington. OpNet works toward a business-community partnership to benefit both the new media industry and low-income youth. The Vice President met with several OpNet trainees and graduates to learn about how OpNet is helping low-income high school graduates develop careers in the new media industry.

Mr. Gore gave a speech on bridging the digital divide, and met with a group of industry and community leaders to discuss and engage in dialog about this critical issue. OpNet CEO Dan Geiger said, "OpNet is honored to have been selected by the Vice President to host this important event, and looks forward to helping many more low-income young people join the new economy."

The Haas School is looking to fill faculty positions in finance, accounting, marketing, organizational behavior, and economics. The school currently has 62 full-time equivalent faculty positions filled and has been authorized to search for 8 new faculty members. Finance, accounting, and marketing are all seeking to find two new faculty members, while organizational behavior and economics are each looking for one new faculty member.

Professor Brett Trueman explained that the accounting search committee is considering hiring either tenured or non-tenured applicants. Trueman added that two people left last year, making the accounting group short three positions total. Professor Richard Stanton, who is leading the Finance Group's search, says that the interviewing process is over, and they are considering both tenured and non-tenured hires. According to Ben Hermalin, associate dean of academic affairs, the economics search has been primarily focused at the untenured level.

Dean Laura D'Andrea Tyson's regular column in Business Week appears in the March 6 issue. "Who are the Real Compassionate Conservatives" gives a detailed account of the Clinton Administration's budgetary policies and labels these policies truly compassionately conservative.

Vice President Al Gore's visit to Dan Geiger's, MBA 98, company OpNet was featured in the Sunday Examiner on February 27. The article "Bay Area to Span Digital Divide" mentioned OpNet's work training low-income youth in web design and other technical skills.

Russell Winer, professor and chair of the marketing group, participated in a round table discussion on what the Internet means to the small-business market. The discussion was published in the March 2000 issue of Red Herring.

Professor Severin Borenstein of the Economic Analysis and Policy group at Haas was quoted at length in the Sacramento Bee (February 19) on the subject of oil and gasoline prices, gas lines, and their effect on car sales and the economy.

HAAS INTERNATIONAL STUDENT CLUB PRESENTS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN ASIA FORUM
Tuesday, February 29, 2000
7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
F320 Haas
Refreshments will be served
The following Haas MBA students will be speaking at the forum:Ema Yamakawa, MBA '01, on investment banking experience in Japan.Eng H. Yeh, MBA '01, on investment banking experience in Singapore.Ipang Lin, MBA '01, on banking and government experience in Taiwan.Jayne Kim, MBA '01, marketing, paralegal, and consulting experience in Korea.Robert Tanner, MBA '00, more than 10 years of experience in Greater China.
For more information, please contact Chia-Li Han (president) at chialihan@yahoo.com or visit Haas International's calendar of events on their temporary Web site at http://www.geocities.com/haas_international.

ANNUAL BUSINESS FACULTY RESEARCH DIALOGUE Richard Portes, Distinguished Global Visiting Professor
Friday, March 3, 2000
4:00 p.m.
Andersen Auditorium
Richard Portes, the Distinguished Global Visiting Professor at Haas and a professor of economics at the London Business School, will give his perspective on the proper role of the International Monetary Fund in the international financial architecture. Call 510-643-2027 for more information.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
"Who Controls the Capital Markets?"
Saturday, March 4, 2000
7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Andersen Auditorium
Registration for the conference is free. The events will begin at 7:30 a.m. with a continental breakfast in the Bank of America forum. Lunch (catered by Rick and Ann's) will be served at 1:00 p.m. All conference activities will take place in and around the Andersen Auditorium. The complete program for the conference can be found at http://haas.berkeley.edu/groups/pubs/haasnews/archives/iconf.html. Please register in advance by e-mailing whitfiel@haas.berkeley.edu.

IDS270-INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS WORKSHOP
"Why are Organizations Such a Mess (and What an Economist Might do About It)," by Robert Gibbons, Chicago University
Thursday, March 2, 2000
4:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Room C325, Cheit Hall
For more information, contact Anita Patterson at patterso@haas.berkeley.edu

E.T. GRETHER RESEARCH SEMINAR IN MARKETING Wagner Kamakura, University of Iowa
Friday, March 3, 2000
3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
Room F320
For more information, contact Gwen Cheeseburg at gwenches@haas.berkeley.edu

ALUMNI EVENTS

Haas Alumni Network sponsored event with HBSA Spring Social
Come meet and mingle with current Haas Students before the Cal vs. UCLA basketball game
March 2, 2000
5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Kips Bar
No need to RSVP
For ticket information call 1-800-GO-BEARS. For more information call the Haas Alumni Relations Office at 1-510-642-7790 or email alumni@haas.berkeley.edu

TOKYO CHAPTER
Join Tokyo Chapter members for a meeting and social gathering at the Nogizaka Club
March 7, 2000
6:30 p.m.
Nogizaka Club
The event is free but a RSVP is required.
For more information and RSVP please contact Ms. Furukawa, UC Japan Asia Office, fax 03-5489-5762 or email ucjapan@gol.com

The Haas NewsWire is the electronic news weekly for the Haas community published every Monday by the Marketing and Communications Office at the Haas School. Send your news, feedback, and suggestions to Haasnews@haas.berkeley.edu.

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